Adventures with Santa

Today we went to Sam's, and while we were there, there was this old man with a long, white beard walking around with a Santa hat on (in regular clothes). Brendan just KNEW it was Santa. He was very excited, though shy. He kept hiding behind me and peering around me to get a good look at him, peeking around the aisles, etc. After a few minutes the man walks by and tells Brendan, "Merry Christmas." Brendan froze, but was ridiculously excited after the man walked away. We spotted him a few minutes later, and the man walked up to us and told Brendan Merry Christmas and asked if he was naughty or nice. Again Brendan froze, but was so excited.

In keeping with our plans, we left Sam's and went to the mall to really visit Santa. I asked Brendan if he still wanted to go, and he insisted that he did. As we walked through the mall, Brendan was getting increasingly agitated, but not unexpectedly so. When we get to the Santa's castle at the mall, he refused to even walk up the ramp to see Santa. We tried to reason and cajole him, but he would have none of it. We told him he didn't have to sit on, hug, or talk to Santa, and he still resisted. We told him we could get in the picture with him and Peyton, but still no luck. In fact, he crawled completely under the stroller and hid there until Peyton was done with his picture.

I don't understand it. He has visited Santa every year with no issues. Last year, he ran right up to Sant and Mrs. Claus at Disney World. The year before he yelled from an upper level of the mall, "GOODBYE, SANTA!!" to him.

As for Peyton, he was fascinated by Santa. He felt his beard and his suit and gave us big smiles for the picture.

A Day at the Pumpkin Farm

Last Sunday we visited a local pumpkin farm to prepare for Halloween. It was a beautiful day, and we had a great time. We were there 5 hours and still didn't do everything. They had a great playground with John Deere tricylces, a playset, sandbok, and a giant vat of corn with big Tonka trucks. They also had a huge fort to play in, hayrides, a corn maze, a little train, a petting zoo, pig races, a giant pile of hay to play in, and a lot of other stuff we didn't have time for.

Unfortunately, I forgot to charge the camera battery, so we didn't get too many pictures. Here are a few of the ones we got:

Random recent pictures

Brendan's Halloween Song

Brendan has developed into quite the songwriter. Ater his debut song, "Big Brothers," was a runaway hit, he recently wrote his next song.

"Halloween"

Halloween, Halloween
What do you see?
I see candy
Floating in the air
We have to catch it
We have to blow it
We have to eat it
We have to take it to our home.

I think he's got some real talent here. Maybe there is something to the whole assertion that lefties are more creative.

Beans

Peyton has just started eating solids in the last couple of weeks. While we were out at dinner tonight, we discovered that he loves refried beans. So far he's had oatmeal, applesauce, squash, pears, and sweet potatoes, but refried beans top them all. This sparked extensive conversations of all things beans, which of course led to Kyle teaching Brendan that favorite of all little boys:

"Beans, beans, the musical fruit,
the more you eat them,
the more you poot.
The more you poot,
The better you feel,
Beans, beans, a wonderful meal."

Now, anyon that has spent any amount of time with Brendan lately can guess at just how hilarious Brendan found a rhyme about pooting. Naturally, he tried to learn it as quickly as possible. So, we now have Brenda reciting his own version of the pooting rhyme:

"Beans, beans the magical fruit.
The more eat them,
The more you poot,
The more you shake your tail."

Go Tigers!!!

This weekend was Brendan's second soccer game. It's amazing how much he has improved since last season--in skill and confidence. He had such a great time and scored THREE goals!!!!! He was so excited and proud of himself. After each goal he'd puff out his chest and strut back to the circle and announce to his coach that he'd scored a goal. Funny boy.

Love the baby laughs

Peyton finally started laughing out loud on his five-month birthday. So far, the only thing he laughs at is Brendan. He just loves his big brother.

Beach Weekend 2009!!!!!

As many of you know, Brendan loves Clifford the Big Red Dog. With this new fascination, he has been wanting so badly to go to the beach (Emily Elizabeth lives near a beach). So, we have been promising him a visit to the beach since before we left Arkansas. We finally took him to Galveston last week. We had a fantastic time. Brendan loved it--except for the water. When he got some in his mouth he said it almost made him "chuke" (puke). Otherwise it was lots of fun. Brendan loved his first visit to the Rainforest Cafe. This one had a river adventure ride, so that made it extra fun. We also got to visit the Aquarium at Moody Gardens. All in all, a great trip.

So, do you think Brendan had a good time?

Sleepy baby...

In my attempt to capture the 'beachy' charm, I snapped a quick picture of this seagull. Kyle later told me it was a pigeon. What can I say? I tried.

Mr. P sure loved the aquarium.

Taj Majal ala Brendan

Tuesdays are geography days at Brendan's school. Today they learned that India has the Taj Mahal.

L: So what is in India?
B: I don't know.
L: Is the Taj Mahal in India?
B: Thomas is small?
L: (laughing)
B: OH!!!!! Thomas the shaw!!!!! Yes. Thomas the shaw is in India and has snow on it. Now tell me something about ostriches.

Gig 'Em Aggies!

We're very excited to take the both of the boys to their first game at Kyle Field this weekend. Whoop! To get in the spirit, we've been attending practices the last few weeks. Brendan says he's a real Aggie when he wears his jersey (Thanks Mimi and Grandad!) and his Aggie cap:

What is the earth made of?

This was the focus of the day in school on Tuesday, when they were learning about land, air, and water. So, when I picked him up, I asked Brendan what three things the Earth is made of. He thought for a second and responded, "Houses, roads, and DISNEY WORLD!!!"

Back to school...

Brendan started his new school this week, and is doing great. He just loves it. We expected the transition from being at home to being back at a different school would be a little rough. Boy, were we ever wrong. He missed being in school and with other kids, so much that he was ready to go. He loves his new teacher already, and she loves him, too. He's having to adjust to switching between the montessori and discovery rooms during the day, but he's doing ok. It's just a little confusing to be Miss Amanda's kid, and leave her and her class to go to a different class. This is mitigated by the pure awesomeness that is bringing his own lunch to school in his own lunch box. What could be cooler than that?!

On the first day,he came home and told Peyton, "I went to classes and had lots of fun and I MISSED YOU, PAINT!!!" By the second day, he was getting frustrated with us because it was taking much too long to get to school. He gets so excited to show everything in his class in the mornings and afternoons. And every morning he has to check on the class pets (three geckos and a mouse) because "they love me."

So, as you can tell, the new school has been a resounding success so far. I really miss having him at home with me, but that's okay because he's having a great time. At least, I've got Mr. P to keep me company.

Catching Up

We've had a big couple of months. I'll try to hit the highlights here, and if you're curious about more, you can get in touch with us.

Most of July was occupied with packing the house and making the move back to College Station. This was complicated by me having a root canal and every member of the family getting sick at least twice within a three week period. Poor Peyton spent his three month birthday (July 4) at the doctor for a fever. Brendan also was sick at the time, but we managed to shoot off fireworks in front of the house anyway. Brendan missed most of his last two weeks at school before the move. Thankfully, my mom was able to fly to Arkansas and spend a week with us packing and helping take care of both boys, otherwise, we'd never have made it.

It has been interesting being back in College Station. In a lot of ways it feels like we never left. We love being back. It's taking a while to settle into the house ( I really, really miss my house--which Brendan calls our "regular house"), but we haven't been rushing to settle in too quickly.

Our priority has been on making sure Brendan especially feels good about the move. He has missed being in school and having friends so much. During the weekdays, I've loaded our schedules with lots of activities at places where kids are likely to be. He did a great job at swimming lessons. We've also been rotating through visits to the Children's Museum, the Bounce (inflatable jumpers), parks, the splash pad, feeding the ducks, Chuck E. Cheese, and the mall playground. Thankfully he'll be starting at his new preschool on Monday! It's a montessori, so it's quite different than his last preschool, but at least it's not the militant, kids-can't-talk-to-each-other type of montessori. We think it'll be a good fit. Brendan is excited to have a new Lightning McQueen lunchbox, sheet, and blanket to take with him.

We've also had the opportunity to do some fun stuff since we've been back. We attended a public firefighting display at the TAMU Fire School. Brendan thought it was awesome. We went to an interactive space exhibit at the Bush Museum. Brendan liked a few of the things there, but just isn't ready for museums, even fun ones with interactive things he's interested in, yet. Perhaps most fun is that we've been able to attend several Aggie football practices and scrimmages at Kyle Field. We'll be taking both boys to their first real Aggie football game in a couple of weeks.

And a week ago, I finally graduated. It's so nice to finally be done with the Ph.D. Brendan and Peyton actually did great at the ceremony. I think Brendan was just glad to have his Grandma, Papa, Mimi, and Aunt Karrie in for a visit, though.

So, consider yourself caught up. Now that Brendan is starting back to school, I'll try to keep the blog more regularly updated.

--Dr. Laurie ;)

My charmer

After cleaning up a mess Domino made in his room, Brendan was especially appreciative,

"Thanks, Mommy! You are the best ever. I really love you. I like your hair. And I like your shirt. And I like your pants. And I like your fingers. You are so pretty. You know why you are pretty? Because you have lots of colors on your shirt."

Brendan's thoughts on our morning...

"Mommy, we been workin' very hard this morning. I been workin' about watching tv, and you been workin' about cleaning the house."

Yep, lots of "workin'" going on.

I love this boy

As we were getting ready for bed tonight, Brendan told me, "Mommy, you're the sweetest girl...in the whole...wide...world. And you are the best Mommy ever!"

And no, Kyle didn't tell him to say it. When Kyle plants comments with Brendan, it is more to effect of, "Mommy, you are a skunk."

So, pure Brendan sweetness.

Are you ready to rock?

I said, ARE YOU READY TO ROCK?!?!?!

Here are the boys getting down with their bad selves.

Our Big News....

Our house sold!!!!!! For those of you that don't know, Kyle has accepted a great job at Texas A&M. He starts on July 15, so we are moving home to College Station. We plan to stay there for good--no more big moves for us. We knew this job would happen for a while, so the house went onthe market when Peyton was about a week old. We had started to worry about paying mortgage and rent if the house didn't sell and making plans to survive on nothing. We got and accepted an offer last week, and we'll close about a week after we move. The timing couldn't be more perfect.

I'm very sad to leave this house behind. I adore this house. We were exceptionally fortunate to be able to purchase such a beautiful house for our first real home. It's especially hard for me to leave behind the mural I painted in Brendan's room (it took me a month!). Our neighborhood is wonderful and we have some really great friends in our neighbors.

But, Kyle and I both feel that College Station is where we belong. So, while we're sad to leave this house behind, we look forward to putting down roots in Aggieland.

Happy Father's Day!!!

A quick picture to memorialize our first Father's Day with Peyton. And the shark. Yes, Brendan insisted that his toy shark be a part of the picture.

New sports...

Now that summer is here, both boys have tried out new sports. For Brendan, horseshoes is his new game of choice. Playing is okay, but he really likes to be "the boy that says good job" when someone else throws.

Peyton seems to be interested in boxing. I have, however, flatly vetoed further pursuit of this sport. Two months is way too young for violence.

Slippin' and Slidin'

More Peyton Pictures

I will remind you again, with regard to the picture quality, of the difficulty of photographing baby smiles.

Sweet Big Brother

I've mentioned before what a great big brother Brendan is. He loves to give Peyton hugs and kisses. He also "pets" Peyton on the head when he cries. He sings Peyton songs and will tell him, "It's ok 'Paint,' we're almost home" if we're in the car. Last night Brendan tried to entertain Peyton with a game of Patty Cake.

Our Soccer Boy

A new development that occurred this Spring is that Brendan played on his first soccer team--the Green Giants. We had a rough start. The first game was cold and rainy, and after playing almost a whole quarter, another boy bumped into Brendan, who fell down and got soaked. Brendan was convinced this was on purpose and refused play another minute. The entire next week we talked about how soccer boys sometimes fall down, but it's not a big deal. From that point on he did better and better.

Even though Brendan was by far the youngest player on the team (most kids were 5 and 6), he was one of the faster kids, if not the most coordinated. A few highlights from the season include:

• The second game--when Brendan spent an entire quarter running, launching himself to the ground, rolling over, getting up, and then repeating the process (see above mention about talking to himabout it being okay for soccer boys to fall down).


• Two games during which Daddy "pretended to be Coach Bob" when Coach Bob couldn't make it to the game. Brendan thought this was hilarious.


• The game on the day Peyton was born. Daddy was at the hospital all night with Mommy and Peyton who was born around 3 am. Brendan would be very disappointed to miss a game, so Daddy picked Brendan up, took him to the game where Daddy pretended to be Coach Bob, all before bringing Brendan up to the hospital to see Mommy and meet Peyton.


• The game where Brendan scored a goal!!!!
  
• Receiving his very first trophy!

Smiley Peyton

I know it's been a while, but I thought I'd post a few pictures of Peyton smiling. He's been smiling for a while, but they are very difficult catch on camera.

So, admittedly these aren't the best shots, but it's not easy catching a 6-week-old's quick smiles. To give some perspective, these are a few of the other shots I managed to capture in the process of catching those smiles.

That first set of pictures isn't looking too bad now, is it?

Disney World 2008

As many of you know, we made a trip to Disney World in December. This was because we've always wanted to go to Disney World at Christmastime, and we managed to fold in Brendan's birthday celebration into the trip. We had a great time, of course. We stayed at the Pop Century resort again, and loved it, again. December is a great time to visit Disney World. The weather was perfect--you could swim and wear shorts during the day, and be fine in shorts or pants at night. Also, the Christmas decorations are just beautiful.

Before you look at the pictures below, I would like to remind you that I did not suddenly develop a pot belly, but that I was five months pregnant at the time.

Cinderella's Castle covered in lights that looked like icicles:


The Osborne Family Lights at Disney Hollywood Studios. All these lights actually used to be in a Little Rock family's yard, but there were lots of complaints, so the display was sent to Disney World:


Christmas at Epcot:

Really, could he get any cuter?

Minnie had to give Peyton a kiss, too:

One of the highlights of the trip for Brendan. He was in the middle of his "new animal movie" (Jungle Book) phase, so he was thrilled to meet Baloo.